decent printer

thebaz

Now that i have my new Nikon d50 , need to get a decent printer.
Want something that is not slow , prints fast , with decent quality , and would like to print out to size 8 x 10 .

Would a dye sub printer be very expensive , thus allowing my prints to arrive dry , without getting smudged easile.
Any recconendations greatly appreciated.

Currently have a cheap HP that prints reasonable 6 x 4 s, but is very slow.

Borderfox

Epson R220 with premium glossy paper, I havent had any complaints. Use original ink too. I think it costs about €120

Borderfox

Large dye-subs are pretty pricey

thebaz

i was looking at this Kodak Professional 1400 Digital Photo Printer , its 400 sterling ! thats 600 euros !!
http://www.calumetphoto.co.uk/item/160-400A.html

a bit more than i planned paying, i was hoping to spend around 200 - 300 euros for something good, but need to print 8 x 10 , and don't want something slow.

Here is a review of this kodak
http://www.ephotozine.com/equipment/tests/testdetail.cfm?test_id=376

gyppo

I got my Olympus p440 on Ebay, and I'm very happy with it. Paper & film not cheap though!

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2004_reviews/olympus_p440.html

cost per 8 * 10 print is about €1.70

311

whatever you decide to go for ,make sure it's effecient .
If it's not ,you'll probably end up not using it ,because it's too dear to run.

The latest canon printers are a pain in the ring ,the ink is dear and cant be refilled and I thought I was getting a bargain when I bought one:rolleyes:

real_484

is it not cheaper in the long run to get someone else do ur prints, esp when you take into account problems printing, break down.

Borderfox

8x10 in Harvey Norman, Airside are about €3 while you wait maybe less.

311

Harvey norman are out in blanch aswell now ,they do the printing too.

DotOrg

8x10 in city centre on Dame St for €2.50 each, cheaper if you get them often. Colours will always be what you want once you calibrate your monitor properly

Zombrex

thebaz wrote:

Now that i have my new Nikon d50 , need to get a decent printer.
Want something that is not slow , prints fast , with decent quality , and would like to print out to size 8 x 10 .

Would a dye sub printer be very expensive , thus allowing my prints to arrive dry , without getting smudged easile.
Any recconendations greatly appreciated.

Currently have a cheap HP that prints reasonable 6 x 4 s, but is very slow.

The small photo ones that connect straight to digital cameras are dye sub as far as I know, but they only go up to 6x4

I'm getting the Epson R800 inkjet printer next month, its supposed to give photo lab quality results up to A4 size. I'll let you know how I get along.

DrummerBoy

Wicknight wrote:

The small photo ones that connect straight to digital cameras are dye sub as far as I know, but they only go up to 6x4

I'm getting the Epson R800 inkjet printer next month, its supposed to give photo lab quality results up to A4 size. I'll let you know how I get along.

That R800 is the mutts nuts!!! A few different people have bought them off me where I work and everyone has come back saying that they're fantastic.

alex.lyons

Have had tha canon pixma ip4000 forjust over a year nd a half, brilliant printer, great quality, very fast aswell. ink is a bit pricy but the printer is very efficiant and i havnt needed 2 replace them 2 often. i find that the diferent inks go at didferent times, so if you buy them just before they run out (theres an indicator 2 tell u wats left, only thing is it says its ful 4 ages nd sudenly drops 2 nothing, but you get enuf printing out of it when it says its empty 2 last until u get a new cartridge) its easyr on the wallet...
Although i find having spares is handy enuf when doing large amounts of printing.

having a guillotine is very nice aswell, easy cutting of paper if u decied 2 get a cupl of 6x4's on an a4 sheet. prints up 2 a4 which incorporates 8x10. I use canon photo paper pro nd they come out almost better than lab quality.

Good printer, highly recomend it.

P.s. ink is a little hard 2 come by, but if you get the printer, let me no wher u are nd i may no sumwher 2 get it, if not, il find sumwher lol!!

boidey

having used both inkjet and dye sub, dye sub produces a professional durable water& light fast print, look up a hiti730 printer, it can do 6x4 7x5 & 8x6, If you shop around you can get one from around £250. whilst inkjets are cheaper to buy, the end result can also look cheap

thebaz

boidey wrote:

having used both inkjet and dye sub, dye sub produces a professional durable water& light fast print, look up a hiti730 printer, it can do 6x4 7x5 & 8x6, If you shop around you can get one from around £250. whilst inkjets are cheaper to buy, the end result can also look cheap

Thanks - i want to get a dye sub , and was reccomended a kodak 1400 --
it is available on technidirekt for 451 -- any other dye sub recomendations -- the hiti730 printer seams currently unavailable ?
did you find it reliable, as i have never heard of it !

Will be printing 8x6 , and would prefer not to have to cut if possible, the Kodak 1400 will require cutting for 8 x 6 .

thebaz

The hiti730 PS looks good, there is no store in Dublin supplying HiTi products, there are suppliers all over UK and the North, so i am dealing direct now with http://www.hi-ti.com/UK/
Price is similar to Kodak -- £ 330 -- but it does print 8x6 directly, i believe .
As stated, never heard of HiTi before, have you had any issues with them ?

boidey

Have a look at http://www.systeminsight.co.uk/acatalog/Hi_Touch_Photo_Printers.html#HT730PL
The PL requires a PC to print from, the PS can do it standalone. They are a professional users product, they have only recently started to sell to non professional users, the cost per print is fixed and will be slightly above commercial prices, the advantage of it is that you can print what you want when you need it,

Roen

boidey wrote:

Have a look at http://www.systeminsight.co.uk/acatalog/Hi_Touch_Photo_Printers.html#HT730PL
The PL requires a PC to print from, the PS can do it standalone. They are a professional users product, they have only recently started to sell to non professional users, the cost per print is fixed and will be slightly above commercial prices, the advantage of it is that you can print what you want when you need it,

One of the women in work got one of these dohickeys, I must get on to her and see what it's like.

Sebzy

Got the Canon PIXMA iP8500 just over a year ago when I kicked the crap out my 3 month old epson R300......

Reason for getting rid of the Epson (A bit long)

Purchased the R300 in Dixons and it looked great. Got it home and set it all up still great. That week i printed not more than 8 A4 prints two of which BW. Color was good and speed not too bad. Left the printer off now for about 12 days and got a job to retouch some old BW shots from the 50's so fired up photoshop and spent a few hours cleaning and touching up the images. Now I had in total one week to get the shots ready and with my new R300 i would have it done in two days but that was until this happened.

Truned the printer on and tried to print out the first image which gave me a low ink warning on the cyan. So printed off one and noticed everything was deep red.
Set the printer to head clean and then printed off the test page
One fifth of the nozels were showing up as blocked after the cleaing to to another cleaning cycle and got it down to about a tenth but still not ready to make good prints. At this point the Cyan was showing up as empty and the magenta as low. I was quite pissed off and called dixons to complain and see if i could get a replaement. The sales guy explained as the unit seems to be working and looks to need a head clean i should call canon support for further assistance so thats just wat i did. Canon explained the heads must be blocked and asked me to try the cleaing again. but here's the catch i would have to buy a fresh cyan to do another print cycle. Canon was not prpered to accept the unit faulty until i had run through cleaing again. And didons did not see the problem. So I was left in a very bad situation with no prints and time flying away. Two days later i printer all the images off in a print shop.

I decided to try something for fun and never expected this.
Opened up the cyan cart and to my horror there was a third left in the little reservoir and much the same with the magenta you could see the ink swishing around inside.

For the next 2 months I forgot about the printer and done all my printing in shops.

Right so it was time to clean up the room and took great joy in putting my boot throught that piece of trash.

====================

Reason for getting the Canon

See throught ink carts and better color
Better customer care.
Nothing to do with Dixons
Fast

have been running it hot for over a year and love it to bits.


Seb.